They've gone from hero to zero in less than a year.
And the more they talk, the more they lose. They've tiny-tented their way into irrelevancy.
They fell apart very quickly, but it's taken much longer than a year. Remember that they were gaining power in congress as late as 2004. Jeffords left the GOP in 2001, splitting the Senate 50/50, but the GOP took it back in 2002 and gained more seats in 2004. We, as a nation, were still too scared of terrorism, and not enough people grasped how fucked up Iraq was yet.
Democrats retook congress in 2006, in my recollection primarily because people had enough scaremongering and were furious about Iraq.
Nobody was voting based on economic concerns at the time (ok some were but it was low). If you reflect on it or read articles from the time, most Republicans publicly claimed that it was a momentary blip - a reaction to a deeply unpopular president and a terribly waged war. Very few Republicans wanted to talk about fundamental problems with their party.
It wasn't until 2008 elections now that nobody can seriously claim there isn`t a serious problem. As recently as EARLY 2008 a lot of people said, "oh sure, we may not win the presidency because Bush is so unpopular, but the GOP brand isn't all that bad". Even the idiots who want to exclude more moderates and push more extreme versions of the ideals they've proven are so disastrous at least acknowledge that it's a
shift to conservative extremes. They actually think the party is too moderate, but they do acknowledge it needs to move to win elections again (in the wrong direction, but whatever)
It's really fast, to be sure. But not a year. Compare to the Democrats losing congress in '94, maintaining the presidency until 2000 and only really having an upward trend as of 2006. The Democratic ideals were never as scorned or (legitimately) repudiated as the GOP's ideals have been.
